Many South Carolinians remember where they were when the news broke on June 17, 2015, that nine African Americans were murdered by a white supremacist during their Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston. It was a hate crime that shocked the nation and forced the state to reckon with its past, eventually resulting in the removal of the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds. In Berkeley County, the tragedy was deeply felt as it became known that Sharonda Coleman-Singleton was among those who were slain.
Coleman-Singleton was a speech language pathologist and head coach for girls’ track and field at Goose Creek High, along with being an assistant pastor at Mother Emanuel.
Following her death, the track and field coaches within Berkeley County School District decided they wanted to do something to honor her memory, but what? At the time, the coaches distributed individual awards for a student being the most outstanding track athlete or the most outstanding field athlete at the annual BCSD district track meet.
After some deliberation, they decided to create one overall award for the best female track and field athlete and name it after Coleman-Singleton.
“When we first gave it out it wasn’t like an MVP of the whole meet, it was the Sharonda Singleton Female Athlete of the Year,” Greg Hall, Cane Bay High’s track and field coach, said. “We just felt it was the right thing to honor her.”
In April of 2016, the first student to win the award was Destiny McKnight, a hurdler from Goose Creek High.
“I mean, those kids knew everything she was doing was for them,” Hall said. “Every time you’d go to a track meet you knew where to find her. She’d have her lawn chair, she’d be at the finish line, she’d have her clipboard, she’d have her stopwatch and she was there for every kid.”
Since the hurdles were her main event, there’s also an award at the tri-county track meet for the 400 hurdles named after Coleman-Singleton. On a state level, the South Carolina Track and Cross Country Coaches Association awards the Sharonda Coleman-Singleton Scholarship annually to two students who embody the six pillars of character she lived her life by: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship.
“She was a very good coach, very hardworking, and the respect that people had for her is why these awards have come to be,” Hall said.
Hall announces the winner of the Sharonda Singleton Girls Most Valuable Athlete of the Meet every spring at the district track meet and makes sure to preface the award with an explanation.
“We make sure that they know who she was, where she coached and then what happened because a lot of kids nowadays…they might have heard of the Emanuel Nine, but they don’t make that connection,” Hall said. “She touched so many lives.”
To continue Coleman-Singleton’s memory, Goose Creek High is hosting the Sharonda Singleton Classic on April 12, 2025.
